(Definitely check out the patreon build that just came out if you are willing to support us. There have been major edits for pacing around the stag scene.)
William is homosexual. Many gay people in the US were coerced into marriage for colonialist purposes, and that's a major component of William's story. There are several major bi characters though, like Cliff, Todd, James and his wife, Dora and Jim. The majority of a sexually segregated workforce in Echo at this time period would express bisexuality and m/m relationships in some fashion based on historical trends and evidence. Homophobic attitudes would still coexist in some capacity with this realty as well.
'Ey! For Echo, I was doing 7-10k word updates (30-45 minutes of content) per build each month. I may stick to that, or do a bigger update every two months.
I'll probably just end up alternating between the two, in the end.
Sam hates the stigma attached to him, surrounding his job, moreso than most of the acts involved in the job. Like William, he has a lot of self-loathing that isn't necessary, that cultural hegemony has unloaded onto him. Howly did confirm to me that he loved having sex with clients since the beginning.
What Sam actually hates is struggling to scrape by with how little he's paid, and being demeaned for his reputation.
I don't think making a sex worker who loathes sex *itself* is necessarily a stronger narrative choice, or even a particularly unique one when it comes to how pop culture portrays sex workers vs. the frequent reality.
One of Sam's flaws is that he has good people in his life who he met through his sex work but is too bothered by the stigma to enjoy when good things are looking him in the face-- even if they're things that Sam loves.
Hello. Since the crux of this argument is about honest criticism, we need to address true things.
1. I have written more than ninety-five percent of this project. The content of this project that howly wrote was:
-half of the introduction before the route split, until nik is first introduced.
-The very beginning of the nik route until before yao is first introduced.
Howly had some very loose ideas about Nik and Will. He wanted will to be married and have some homophobic elements to his character perspectives. He wanted Nik to be a heart-felt love story. I have done my best to uphold these original ideas while letting a good portion of myself enter the story, such as exploring labor History in Nik route, and Mystery elements and themes of homosexual shame and self-loathing in Will route.
I'm sorry you are not interested in the labor politics of nik route or Will's self-exploration of himself, but, these are coming from places of genuine humanity.
2. I do not consider an overwhelming amount of this game dark. A lot of it is a celebration of the progressive movement in America before things go bad. I try to do a mix of good and bad things to tell a story of the town in this era. A lot of it does veer dark due to the nature of the horror genre.
3. I do not hate Cliff. I have cowritten him since the beginning with Redd, and have written a heavy amount of the portion of his story. I like weasels, and even used to have a weasel fursona a long time ago! I just never wanted to portray Cliff as a suave cool guy, because a lot of his story is so heavily tied to themes of the nastier side of anthropology and colonization that America did in this time era, and to some extent still does today.
If Cliff had not been an anthropologist, we probably could have gone in a drastically different direction with him. But I think the role of the Meseta needed more presence and we used Cliff's story to explore that more.
Cliff's story is about growing (or not growing!) as a person, all the while enjoying his eccentricities.
Criticism is always welcome. But it needs to come from places based on the truth. There is a lot of me in the characters in this story- but that's kind of the point of being an author.
There's definitely going to be edits for all places and routes by the time the story is finished. We plan on a final edit pass in between individual route completion and full game completion. Thanks for reading!
There will most likely be sex scenes down the line, yes. I want to ensure they're satisfying emotional payoffs and fit the story when they happen, so it'll be a little while!
It's entirely optional, but it's something that you can only do if you have a good relationship between Sam and Will and you as will consent to it and are open to the idea of him being submissive.
The narrative of the plot changes if you don't do this, but there isn't a "correct" answer. -George
Yeah. It's kind of a strange thing to think about because "faithful" usually refers to religious institutions back in the day, and not breaking your vows. M/m and f/f relationships were often not seen as real or natural by these institutions.
A sex worker would generally want a lot of clients unless they could become a concubine to a rich patron.
Not to dismiss what you're saying, but there's another harmful stereotype about sex workers I try to be mindful of-- the idea that it's a terrible, desperate profession that folks are forced into because of hard times (aka the depiction you see in the Les Miserables musical).
A lot of women in the wild west and geishas in Japan found a new sense of agency and autonomy through sex work, and found themselves in economically stronger positions than they were used to. A lot of sex work was banned in parts of the world specifically as a reaction to women gaining political and monetary power through these means as a patriarchal response.
I didn't want to portray Sam's life as a sex worker as something miserable, even though he has a lot of cultural hangups and shame about doing it himself.
Sam likes sex, is good at it, and is making a living in a way he probably otherwise couldn't. I try to portray his work life and also write sex in a way that is meaningful to the plot-- but I also don't want to diminish the joy Sam has doing the act.
Keep in mind this Will is a character who likes BDSM and did some pretty kinky stuff with Sam in the previous intimate scene that they had together.
Sam was more or less reciprocating Will's desires in a later scene, which were discussed verbally prior to the scene, and enacted nonverbally after.
There's an aftercare scene I'll be writing in the future, but I just hadn't gotten there in the story at the time due to it being 15k words (which is already big for a monthly update.)
Thank you for reading, and I do hope you will revisit Will's route again some time, even though it's good to avoid triggers that you know will offput you.
Kane is chaotic and a bit villainous. I like him but I don't think he's supposed to be particularly endearing. Thanks for understanding though, and I appreciate that you're still reading. -George
That's weird. Apparently itch seems to be having a lot of issues as of late. At least that's what folks have been telling me for downloads with other games as well.
I'd delete any current builds you have from your machine and keep trying, but that's all I can think of.
To me it feels a bit disingenuous to say that the scenes are random or unsolicited when you have to have 4/5 points between sam and will, have to select that will is open to bottoming, and have to agree after a convo with kane for you to even have the chance to access the scene.
Basically, you would have to go against any impulse or notion that will wouldn't bottom or would not want this to get to see the scene in the first place.
You can't get that scene if you are not making those in-game choices.
I think if you didn't care for the scene, or the themes of the work I'm writing, that's fine and valid.
But I've also seen so much misinformation about this update from people that didn't read it closely, or just didn't plain read it at all.
Mostly, I wrote a scene about a closeted man overcoming his past trauma from his father and getting a second chance to explore his sexuality through a fun but intense hookup with a rowdy dom. I don't particularly regret it nor think it's bad development for Will, who actually wants to do things like this, but has a lot of past baggage about it.
At the end of the day, the writing speaks for itself, so if you don't enjoy the project anymore, my condolences, and I hope you find the stories that resonate with you.
Yeah, I can see why it can feel strange (especially for small town clueless cop like Todd, or will putting up with it), but I've definitely seen situations play out like this IRL where friends who aren't attracted to one another have sex with other people in the same room, so it's not like I personally think it's unbelievable.
This is a scene where a lot of characters are letting loose to put their minds off of the stress of what's going on and just let their instincts lead them to a small patch of enjoyment that they rarely ever get to have.
(I'd also say it was more of two twosomes in one room than a 4some, and that one of the twosomes turns into somewhat of a threesome with will x kane x sam, but that's just semantics haha.)
I think you're making a lot of assumptions about the characters (especially Will). I would recommend rereading the route.
I'd also recommend disentangling monogamous romance with morality considering the setting, the time era, and the groups of people involved in the story.
William is never forced into bottoming. Kane was just inflexible, and that was the only way Will was going to get to do anything with him.
Kane says during the scene they can waste the night if will doesn't act on his wants. You also don't get the opportunity to ever do the scene if you say will won't bottom as himself.
